The Shiloh Sisters (Harrison Raines Civil War Mysteries (Paperback))

Rating:
Summary: Very Slow Start Redeemed by Entertaining Second Half
Review: General Grant is getting his army ready to march on Corinth, Mississippi when a beautiful woman enters his tent. She's the wife of a congressman and demands a pass to visit her twin sister across the line. Grant reluctantly agrees, but regrets his decision when the Confederates attack the next morning. In the aftermath of the bloody battle, not a trace can be found of either woman.

Meanwhile, Harrison Raines and Jacques Tantou are returning from New Mexico. Harry insists on going through New Orleans to follow up on a bit of information he got on Louis Devereux to try to quiet his mind about the loyalties of this beautiful actress. What happens there sends them up the Mississippi and across the path of Grant. Suddenly Harry finds himself on a quest to solve the mystery of what happened to the sisters to prove his loyalty to the Union.

Like the last book in this series, it starts out very slow. In fact, the first 50 pages of Harry could be cut out without missing anything critical to the story. Even when his story gets interesting, he behaves in such a stupid manner it was driving me crazy. The second half returned to the good plotting of the first few books in the series. Here there was plenty of excitement and I felt like the book was actually getting somewhere. Plus Harry grows a brain and starts acting like a grown up and not a teenager. And the ending has such a nice wrap-up, I wonder if we will have more in the series or not. Once again, the setting and real events of the time come to life. The author has spent lots of time researching the time period and it shows.

On the whole, I'd probably give the book a 3.5 rating, rounding up to four to be generous. Fans of the series will want to read it, but new comers won't care about the characters enough to continue to the real meat of the story, the second half.